Over the course of the last decade I have taken numerous Microsoft Certified Professional exams. I have never, ever failed one–until last week. The topic was out of my area of expertise, yet I’d invested time preparing, & I thought I was ready.

My intital response was disappointment. I wasn’t humiliated, yet it was humbling. And I knew this would give me an opportunity to master the material. My immediate actions included:
1. I taped the exam printout & taped it immediately below the Vision Statement which I read each-&-every morning.
2. I ordered study guides which will provide the knowledge I need not merely to pass, but to ACE it!

Very thoughtful post. If we dwell on trying new frontiers without obsessing our thoughts with the results, we can enjoy the experiment as your wife terms it. Life is to try and live with pride of an effort. It’s always better to fall and get up even if we fall again then to be enslaved by the fear of fall to do nothing.

@Jimmy,
Thanks for checking-in, partner! Improper exception handling is one of the cruelest performance killers in software. With one project they needed to periodically restart their server since they abused exception handling. Best would be monitor for exceptions, log it, analyze, and fix the problem. That is exactly what you demonstrated – you admitted the failure, analyze it, fixed the problem and moved forward. Same with humans I think. Humans should learn from software performance engineering to cope with life challenges. With my project I often surprise stakeholders with perf tests results. After conducting initial perf test I proudly announce “we have great achievement – we failed!” – “huh?” – “Yes, it is achievement, now we know what we did not know. Now we know what to fix.”

I definitely agree that many things in life aren’t win-lose situations, and shouldn’t be looked at as such. I would distinguish the differences in Dale Carnegie’s analogy further, though.

The man doing and daring more will likely have more rewarding experiences, but it’s always okay for him to dock at the shore and just dangle his feet in the water every now and then. Sometimes the best way to appreciate life’s adventures is to not have one every once in a while.

I shared my experience above regarding my reaction to failure. I failed my first certification exam ever. As a follow-up I’d like to let you know that I dusted myself off, got back on the horse, & beat the exam earlier this week. “Real” failure, is NOT an option!